Alex Pettyfer, star of the upcoming I Am Number Four, Beastly and Now, is attached to play race car driver James Hunt in DreamWorks Pictures’ adaptation of Tom Rubython’s book, “Shunt: The Story of James Hunt.”
The book is described as follows:
James Hunt is remembered more for his girlfriends and wild personal exploits than for his skills in a race car. But the excesses of his glamorous life cannot hide the fact that he was, in many peoples opinion, the fastest driver on the Formula One circuits in the 1970s. In an era dominated by the likes of Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda and Ronnie Peterson, Hunt stood out in terms of raw speed and his seemingly effortless ability to plant a Formula One car on pole position. In this full and comprehensive account of the life of James Hunt, the author and his researchers have examined every detail of the drivers life from his very earliest days to the last hours of his existence as well as the lives of the people he left behind. It is the story of a man who started his racing career penniless, earned millions in a lifetime of success, but, in an astonishing twist of fate at the end of his life, died exactly as he had begun penniless. It is a story many have tried to tell but never in such a complete way. This is that story.
The project is now out to writers. Pettyfer will produce with John Palermo (The Wolverine).
